Views from Point Breeze

Last Sunday my Mother was blessed to turn 85 years old.  She was born in 1932 in Ridgeway, South Carolina.  Times were very different then.  Much of the debate at that time was over the causes and possible remedies to the Great Depression.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected and began to build a program know as the New Deal to help restore confidence in the U.S. economy.  www.igalegroup.com reported that in 1933, nearly one thousand local governments had defaulted on debt payments and that nearly four hundred charities had disappeared in New York.  The safety net that many of us rely on in times of trouble was shredded.  My Mother grew up in a wooden house with no street lights in an area that was still hostile towards people of color. I dropped my Mom off at church this morning.  She has to be one of the most loyal members of Saint Rita's ever.  She reads Scripture on many Sundays and also attends Bible study.  She was lamen...

The biggest thing that I remember as a younger American was the threat of a Russian missile attack.  President Ronald Reagan had created a system that would sort of encapsulate the U.S. against any attacks that would come from our formidable adversary.  Many history buffs can recall the stories of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.  These were iron fisted rulers who sharpened the tools of a nation that was bent on world power.  They were also a state where totalitarian rule was in effect.  I have read novels where there was no privacy and all conversations could be subject to official eavesdropping.  In spite of some of the misinformation that I might have received, Russians are probably not all that different than Americans. I have more memories of Mikhail Gorbachev than any other Russian leader.  The Russians were in a prolonged war with Afghanistan in the mid to late eighties.  They had to wind up leaving with their tail between their legs. ...